Phonologically Conditioned Phonetic Changes
Josef Fruehwald, University of Pennsylvania
May 1, 2013
Outline
- Brief Background
- Brief background regarding the conventional wisdom about phonetic changes that I’ll be trying to problemetize.
- Brief background on the Philadelphia Neighborhood Corpus.
- Two Case studies highlighting the role of phonology in phonetic change
- Pre-voiceless /ay/ raising.
- Pre-consonantal /ey/ Raising
- Conclusions
Background
Conventional wisdom regarding conditioned sound changes:
Natural Physiological / Perceptual Phenomenon
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e.g. Hyman (1976); Ohala (1981, 1990, inter alia); Blevins (2004); Bermudez-Otero (2007), cf. Baker, Archangelie & Mielke (2011)
Background
Hypothetical: The effect of coronals on adjacent /uw/. (Ohala, 1981)
Background
Effect of coronals on /uw/ in Philadelphia.
Today
I will be presenting an analysis based on the Philadelphia Neighborhood Corpus which problemetizes this conventional wisdom.
Pre-voiceless /ay/ raising.
The opaque interaction between /ay/ raising and /t, d/ flapping is in place from the very beginning.
Pre-consonantal /ey/ raising.
The most phonetically favoring context does not undergo the change.
The Philadelphia Neighborhood Corpus
- Interviews collected between 1972 and 2010
- Fieldwork associated with the Ling 560 Class
- Goal: interview as many residents on a city block as possible
- 1,107 interviews in catalog from mostly working class neighborhoods
- The PNC
- 358 speakers transcribed and analyzed so far
- Dates of Birth ranging from 1888 to 1991
- 860,000 automated vowel measurements.
Philadelphia Row Homes, 1973
North Philadelphia Row Homes, 1973
North Philadelphia Row Homes, 1973
South Philadelphia Row Homes, 2012